PART ONE
Introduction
Topics Include:
kinds of overeaters
benefits of moderate eating
dilemmas for the overeater
personal tools needed
how secrets relate to overeating
affirmations
Special Exercises to:
stop overeating
increase inner strength
discover secrets
develop self respect
Introduction 1 - Idea for Triumphant Journey
Begins
In 1991 I was cohosting a radio talk show concerning health issues
with Tamiko in Beverly Hills, California. She asked me to write a brief "Ten Tips to
Stop Overeating" that we could offer our listeners. Her idea was a card that people
could tack on a refrigerator door.
I liked the idea of writing something simply and clearly that would
help people understand how to stop overeating. But the subject is too complex for me to
boil down to a card on a refrigerator door. I wish I could.
A refrigerator and snack cupboard card that might help would simply
say, "Look in the exercise section of Triumphant Journey before you reach for
non-essential food. You might find a better way to resolve your feelings and clear up your
thinking than eating right now."
I thought of my own eating disorder history, of bingeing and
throwing up for may years in secret, long before bulimia had a name. I remembered all the
useless, self-deceiving and sometimes dangerous devices I used in my attempts to stop. I
remembered my guilt, my growing sense of failure and despair, my loneliness and my
stalwart attempts to look good. And finally I remember accepting that my behavior would
kill me. I lived believing that I would die in six months. I had no visions of any future
for me and so never made long range plans that involved years of commitment.
Today I know that bulimia was my greatest teacher. Moving through
the despair of my eating disorder into a life of health, freedom and continual opportunity
was and continues to be my Triumphant Journey.
I wanted to share the essence of the healing journey with my
patients and especially to the people still trapped in lonely despairing eating disorders
that can erode a soul.
The seeds of this book first sprouted in an article called,
"Ten Tips to Stop Overeating," published by Resource Publications in Winter,
1991. Spring of 1992 Resources published my follow-up article, "Triumphant Journey:
Understanding the Secrets of Overeating and Binge Behavior."
The many letters of appreciation I received from people struggling
alone with their overeating moved and inspired me. I tried again to describe what I find
to be the most helpful guidelines in addressing tenacious overeating. This book and this
eating disorder department of Self Help and Psychology Magazine is growing out of those
articles.
Overview
Part One
This section gives you some background about Joanna
Poppink and explains why most diet programs don't work.
Part Two
Part Two helps you discover if you are an
overeater and explores some rewards of being free from an eating disorder.
It describes what powerful emotional and life challenges must be
confronted as your eating patterns become appropriate to your health and well being.
It describes personal qualities in your Essential Equipment List that are necessary in your
journey to be free of overeating.
Part Three
Part Three is designed to help you stop
overeating. By following this guide you can improve your relationship with food and
yourself. You can begin to address the source of your need to overeat and develop more
satisfying and useful ways of thinking and behaving. Part Three prepares you for doing the
deep work described in Part Seven.
Part Four
Part Four provides specific information
about underlying issues in eating disorders.
It discusses how secrets relate to overeating, how those secrets can
cause pain in your life today and how those secrets may have developed.
Part Five
Part Five describes and discusses a
childhood incident which helps clarify how secrets can help create and maintain eating
disorders.
Part Six
Part Six, by means of 20 questions, helps
you discover if you have secrets in your life which may govern your overeating.
Part Seven
Part Seven describes the heart of your
program to be free of your eating disorder. Here you will find preparatory exercises and
an Action Plan. These will take you through the deep work of discovering secrets that can
compel you to overeat. It shows you how to create and use a personal support and workbook
system that will guide you through your personal recovery work.
Part Eight
Part Eight shows you how to use
affirmations and gives you a list of 134 affirmations to choose from in your personal
work.
Part Nine
Part Nine suggests additional sources of
help for people with eating disorders.
I have been a psychotherapist in private
practice in Los Angeles, CA since 1980. Many of my patients have struggled with
overeating. Some are brave adults on a particularly challenging healing path as they
explore not only their own inner world but also how they contributed to the creation of
eating disorders in their children.
Guided imagery was my first specialty. This study still teaches me
about symbols and how we can use a disguised language to work through problems we will not
let ourselves know concretely. Dream analysis became part of this study.
This led me to 12 step programs and psychoanalysis simultaneously as
I studied the grip of addiction and the power of memory, distorted memory and lack of
memory.
Gradually I began to more fully appreciate the joy and useful
personal development opportunities the creative arts and various body awareness practices
contribute to emotional healing.
I began a serious and ongoing study of eating disorders, compulsive
overeating and bulimia in 1983.
The addictive nature of overeating, the anguish, the memory blanks,
the inability to stop, the constant search for new diets, the emotional highs of losing
weight and the guilt and shame of gaining it back seems to be consistent and rampant in
our culture.
I found myself frustrated that many people looked for an answer in a
diet or exercise program. I got angry that desperate frightened people were being promised
answers via diets and exercise programs.
Reasonable diet and exercise programs, if followed consistently,
help provide a person with health and strength. But when programs completely bypass such
underlying issues of eating disorders, the programs are doomed to fail.
The tragedy is that often the person doesn't know it was the program
that failed. The person with the eating disorder, all ready racked with guilt and
self-punishing thoughts, is certain that he or she was the failure. This only perpetuates
despair.
It's more apparent than ever that overeating and other related
behaviors (starving, compulsive exercise to work off calories, purging through laxatives
or vomiting, bizarre eating rituals) are attempts to soothe emotional pain.
Most current research acknowledges that underlying causes of
overeating are complex and profound. Yet people still search for and are being offered
diets as answers.
Return to Triumphant Journey Index
Proceed to Part Two
Copyright © 1992 by Joanna
Poppink. All
rights reserved
Joanna Poppink, M.F.T., licensed #15563 by the State of California in 1980
as a Marriage and Family Therapist. She is a private practice
psychotherapist in Los Angeles. She specializes in working
with people
with eating disorders and with people who are trying to understand and help
a loved one with an eating disorder.
Contact Information:
10573 West Pico Blvd. #20
Los Angeles, CA 90064
http://www.joannapoppink.com
(310) 474-4165 phone
joanna.poppink@verizon.net
